Weary national Republicans breathed a collective sigh of relief on Wednesday, a day after voters knocked out their own party's scandal-plagued candidate in deep-red Alabama. Yet all is not well in a party confronted with new rounds of infighting and a suddenly shrinking Senate majority heading into next year's midterm elections.

Dan Johnson, a Republican state lawmaker in Kentucky known for inflammatory Facebook posts comparing Barack and Michelle Obama to monkeys and who defiantly denied allegations that he sexually assaulted a teenage girl in the basement of his home, killed himself Wednesday night. He was 57.

A Florida mother on Wednesday was convicted for a third time of brutally abusing her toddler before fatally beating the boy who became known as "Baby Lollipops" in a case that riveted Miami decades ago.